1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to airbag apparatuses for vehicles and, more particularly, to an airbag apparatus for a vehicle which is installed in a roof and is deployed to protect a rear seat passenger when a vehicle collision occurs.
2. Description of Related Art
Hitherto, development of airbag apparatuses for vehicles has been focused on protecting front seat passengers. The reason for this results from the supposition that when a vehicle collision occurs, the risk of injury to front seat passengers resulting from collision with the steering wheel or the instrument panel is relatively high, but rear seat passengers who are disposed at positions father from the collision spot than the front seat passengers are comparatively safe.
However, when the vehicle is involved in a frontal collision, a rear seat passenger that is not wearing a safety belt may injure his/her head attributable to collision with the head of a front seat passenger or the seat back of the front seat. Taking into account the fact that the percentage of rear seat passengers who wear safety belts is much lower than that of front seat passengers, development of airbag apparatuses for protecting rear seat passengers is more aggressively required.
Meanwhile, in consideration of the above facts, an airbag apparatus of a vehicle for protecting a rear seat passenger was proposed, as shown in FIG. 1. However, in this approach, the airbag apparatus is installed in a seat back 110 of a front seat 100. Hence, a cushion 130 is inflated just in front of the face of a rear seat passenger 200, thus giving a feeling of anxiety to the rear seat passenger. Furthermore, depending on the position of the front seat 100 or an angle at which the seat back 110 is reclined, the direction in which the cushion 130 is deployed varies. To avoid this problem, the forward or backward movement of the front seat 100 or the reclining function of the seat back 110 must be restricted. However, this is not preferable, because it greatly reduces convenience of the front seat 100. In the drawing, the reference numeral 120 denotes a housing which contains the cushion 130 therein.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.